awardWinner, Victorian Community History Award Judges’ Special Prize, 2016

awardShortlisted, Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards, 2016

awardShortlisted, Dobbie Literary Award, 2016

awardShortlisted, National Biography Award, 2016

Heartbreaking, joyous, traumatic, intimate and revelatory, Reckoning is the book where Magda Szubanski, one of Australia’s most beloved performers, tells her story.

In this extraordinary memoir, Magda describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood, haunted by the demons of her father’s espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on.

Honest, poignant, utterly captivating, Reckoning announces the arrival of a fearless writer and natural storyteller. It will touch the lives of its readers.

Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s best known and most loved performers. She began her career in university revues, then appeared in a number of sketch comedy shows before creating the iconic character of Sharon Strzelecki in ABC-TV’s Kath and Kim. She has also acted in films (Babe, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, The Golden Compass) and...

‘This is a remarkable memoir, that weaves the tragedy of twentieth century history into a personal narrative of coming to terms with family and self, and manages to honour both stories. The writing is assured and controlled, the storytelling expert and thoughtful, the language eloquent and moving. The writing, the story, the voice—all of it is beautiful.’

Christos Tsiolkas

‘Reckoning is a riveting, overwhelmingly poignant autobiography by a woman of genius…It is an extraordinary hymn to the tragic heroism at the heart of ordinary life and the soaring moral scrutiny of womankind. Every library should have it, every school should teach it.’

Weekend Australian

‘Unlike most autobiographies by famous people, Reckoning has substance beyond the writer’s fame…Szubanski’s fine memoir, written with great style, adds another layer to our history — another startling migrant story.’

Crikey

‘Reckoning is a powerful, exquisitely written account of Szubanski’s loves and “lives” thus far.’

West Australian

‘With its hints of nostalgia, raw honesty, compassion, and a good amount of bravery, Szubanski’s Reckoning reflects on the truths we hide and the realities we cannot ignore as we develop into and through our adult lives.’

Conversation

‘Sensitive and searching, colourful and vividly composed…stylish and accomplished.’

Sydney Morning Herald

‘Nearly every memoir is described as “brave” these days but Szubanski has earned the word…The result of her efforts is an affecting story of family intimacy – soulfully and sensitively told.’

Saturday Paper

‘[Reckoning] reveals [Magda] to be an extraordinarily rare talent — somebody with first-rate emotional and comedic instincts as well as a fierce intellect which would allow her to succeed in any academic task she’d set herself…This is a book which will be good for the soul of anybody who reads it.’

Daily Review

‘[Reckoning is] a page-turner…The quality of a memoir depends on how interesting a life the person writing it has had and Szubanski doesn’t appear to do dull. She is articulate and likeable as she tries to reconcile herself with the many difficult aspects of her past.’

New Zealand Herald

[Reckoning] untangles intergenerational trauma with intelligence and insight…[Szubanski] declares herself as a sensitive intellectual who is cursed, or blessed, depending on your point of view, with the fervent desire to understand.’

Newtown Review of Books

‘Reckoning isn’t simply a collection of anecdotes, though – it is so much more. Sharp, beautiful, a must-read.’

Canberra Weekly

‘Magda’s memoir is a moving exploration of her relationship with her Polish Resistance hero father…Reckoning is a quest and, in a sad but satisfying way, Magda does find what she’s seeking.’

Australian Women’s Weekly

‘Far more than a run-of-the-mill celebrity memoir, this is a beautifully written, heartfelt and illuminating family saga.’

New Daily

‘This is an inspiring memoir of a woman who faced her demons, sought treatment for depression and overcame disappointments. She is loved and admired by thousands but, more importantly, she exudes power – the power of being herself.’

Good Reading

‘Compelling author, compelling premise, compelling writing.’

Graeme Simsion, Age/Sydney Morning Herald, Best Books of 2015

‘I also adored Magda Szubanski’s memoir, Reckoning. She has great stories to draw on but it is her very fine writing that makes it such a joy to read.‘

‘Reckoning is a beautiful and moving story of a serious, thoughtful and complex person.’

Paul Barclay, Radio National Books and Arts, Best Books of 2015

‘A fascinating memoir from the much-loved comedian…One of our favourites.’

InDaily

‘Magda Szubanski’s brave, compassionate — and hilarious — Reckoning may be some sort of masterpiece of the form.’

Australian, Best Books of 2015

‘Magda Szubanski blew us away with her writing chops in this remarkable, fearless and deeply personal memoir.’

Booktopia, Books of the Year 2015

‘A moving and grave account of how a great comedian plumbed the enigma of her father’s activities as a Polish wartime resistance hero.’

Peter Craven, Australian, Best Books of 2015

‘[Szubanski] captures wonderfully well the strange dissonance of history.’

Sophie Cunningham, Australian, Best Books of 2015

‘It is so refreshing to read an autobiography by a skilful character actor who is also in her own, non-stereotypical way, a role model for your average Aussie…The book will endure, just as Szubanski herself has.’

Same Same

‘It is impossible not to be moved…Let’s hope Szubanski writes more. She shines just as brightly as a serious writer as she does as a comedian.’

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Extract fromReckoning

'If you had met my father you would never, not for an instant, have thought he was an assassin. Warmhearted, friendly, engaging, intelligent, genial, generous, humorous, honourable, affectionate, arrogant, blunt, loyal. He was a family man. He was handsome, although he did not have heroic stature. He was 5’4”. He was stylish, fashion-conscious; a dandy even. He also looked incredibly young for his age. In his seventies he took to wearing his baseball cap backwards and, believe it or not, he carried it off.

He loved tennis, he loved ballet, he loved good conversation. Out there in the Melbourne suburbs—mowing the lawn in his terry-towelling hat and his Bombay Bloomers; in the lounge room doing the samba at cocktail parties; late at night playing his harmonica in the seclusion of the laundry—you would never have guessed that he was capable of killing in cold blood. But he was. Poor bastard.

He was born in 1924. He was a boy of fifteen when Hitler invaded his homeland and the war began, and as soon as he was able he joined the fighting. All through our growing up he would say, ‘I was judge, jury, and executioner.’ And I could never imagine—cannot imagine even now—what it feels like to have that responsibility, that guilt. To be a little god with a gun, and the power over life and death.

He spent the rest of his life trying to come to terms with what he had done. I grew up in the shadow of that reckoning.

In the Museo del Prado there is a painting by Hieronymous Bosch called The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, painted around 1494. In the fifteenth century itinerant ‘surgeons’ offered relief from the scourge of insanity by performing trepannation. They would cut a hole in the patient’s skull and then remove what they called the ‘stone of madness’. Astonishingly, many people survived.

I swear sometimes I can feel that stone in my head. A palpable presence, an unwelcome thing that I want to squeeze out of my skull like a plum pip, using nothing but the sheer pressure of thought and concentration. If I just think hard enough…

That stone was my father’s legacy to me, his keepsake. Beneath his genial surface, somewhere in the depths, I would sometimes catch a glimpse—of a white, smooth, bone-coloured stone. A stone made of calcified guilt and shame. I could feel it.